Vandalism on Wikipedia

Vandalism of a Wikipedia article (Sponge). The top image shows a comparison between the vandalized version of the article (right) and the non-vandalized version. The bottom image shows the article as it appeared while vandalized, with the text added by the vandal highlighted in blue.

On Wikipedia, vandalism is the act of editing the project in a malicious manner that is intentionally disruptive. Vandalism includes the addition, removal, or other modification of the text or other material that is either humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, or that is of an offensive, humiliating, or otherwise degrading nature.

Throughout its history, Wikipedia has struggled to maintain a balance between allowing the freedom of open editing and protecting the truth and accuracy of its information when false information can be potentially damaging to its subjects.[1] Vandalism is easy to commit on Wikipedia because anyone can edit the site,[2][3] with the exception of articles that are currently semi-protected, which means that new and unregistered users cannot edit them.[4]

Vandalism can be committed by either guest editors or those with registered accounts; however, a semi-protected or protected page can only be edited by auto-confirmed or registered Wikipedia editors, or administrators, respectively.[3] Frequent targets of vandalism include articles on hot and controversial topics, famous celebrities and current events.[5][6] In some cases, people have been falsely reported as having died. This has notably occurred to United States Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd (both of whom are now deceased), and American rapper Kanye West (who is not deceased).[7]

The challenge from vandalism in Wikipedia was once characterized by the former Encyclopædia Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry:[8][9] "The user who visits Wikipedia...is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."

There are various measures taken by Wikipedia to prevent or reduce the amount of vandalism. These include:

Using Wikipedia's history functionality, which retains all prior versions of an article, to restore the article to the last version before the vandalism occurred; this is called reverting vandalism.[5] The majority of vandalism on Wikipedia is reverted quickly.[10] There are various ways in which the vandalism gets detected so it can be reverted:

Bots: In many cases, the vandalism is automatically detected and reverted by a bot. The vandal is always warned with no human intervention.

Recent change patrol: Wikipedia has a special page that lists all the most recent changes. Some editors will monitor these changes for possible vandalism.[11]

Watchlists: Any registered user can watch a page that they have created or edited or that they otherwise have an interest in. This functionality also enables users to monitor a page for vandalism.[11]

Incidental discovery: A reader who comes across the vandalism by chance can revert it.[11] This is currently unlikely to be the case, considering the reliability and speed of anti-vandal bots and recent changes patrollers.

Locking articles so only established users, or in some cases only administrators, can edit them.[5]Semi-protected articles are those that can only be edited by those with an account that is considered to be autoconfirmed – an account that is at least 4 days old with at least 10 edits, for most accounts. Fully protected articles are those that can only be edited by administrators. Protection is generally instituted after one or more editors makes a request on a special page for that purpose, and an administrator familiar with the protection guidelines chooses whether or not to fulfill this request based on the guidelines.

Blocking and banning those who have repeatedly committed acts of vandalism from editing for a period of time or in some cases, indefinitely.[5] Blocking is not considered to be a punitive action on Wikipedia. The purpose of the block is simply to prevent further damage.[12]

Editors are generally warned prior to being blocked. Wikipedia employs a 4-stage warning process up to a block. This includes:[14]

The first warning assumes good faith and takes a relaxed approach on the user.

The second warning does not assume any faith and is an actual warning (in some cases, this level can be skipped if the editor assumes the user is acting in bad faith[15]).

The third warning assumes bad faith and is the first to warn the user that continued vandalism may result in a block.

The fourth warning is a final warning, stating that any future acts of vandalism will result in a block.

After this, other users may place additional warnings, though only administrators can actually carry out the block.

In 2005, Wikipedia started to require those who create new articles to have a registered account in an effort to fight vandalism. This occurred after inaccurate information was added to Wikipedia in which a journalist was accused of taking part in Kennedy's assassination.[2]

Wikipedia has experimented with systems in which edits to some articles, especially those of living people, are delayed until it can be reviewed and determined that they are not vandalism, and in some cases, that a source to verify accuracy is provided. This is in an effort to prevent inaccurate and potentially damaging information about living people from appearing on the site.[16][17]

In May 2005, a user edited the biographical article about John Seigenthaler, Sr. so that it contained several false and defamatory statements.[18] The inaccurate claims went unnoticed between May and September 2005, when they were discovered by Victor S. Johnson, Jr., a friend of Seigenthaler. Wikipedia content is often mirrored at sites such as Answers.com, which means that incorrect information can be replicated alongside correct information through a number of websites. Such information can develop a misleading air of authority because of its presence at such sites:[19]

Then [Seigenthaler's] son discovered that his father's hoax biography also appeared on two other sites, Reference.com and Answers.com, which took direct feeds from Wikipedia. It was out there for four months before Seigenthaler realized and got the Wikipedia entry replaced with a more reliable account. The lies remained for another three weeks on the mirror sites downstream.

Comedian Stephen Colbert has made repeated references to Wikipedia on his TV show The Colbert Report, frequently suggesting on air that his viewers vandalize selected pages. These instances include the following:

On a 2006 episode of his show, Colbert vandalized the article "Elephant" publicly on the air. This resulted in Colbert being blocked from editing, as well as many elephant-related articles being protected.[20]

On 7 August 2012, Colbert suggested that his viewers go to pages for possible 2012 U.S. Republican vice presidential candidates, such as the Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman articles, and edit them many times. This was in response to a Fox News hypothesis that mass editing of the Sarah Palin page the day before she was announced as John McCain's running mate could help predict who would be chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate in the 2012 election. After Colbert's request and his viewers' subsequent actions, all these articles were put under semi-protection by Wikipedia administrators, with editing restricted to established users.[21]

When Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales appeared as a guest on 24 May 2007 episode of The Colbert Report, they discussed Colbert's vandalism. Wales later said on the show that he may have to lock down the entire Spanish-language Wikipedia for a few days after Colbert commented that perhaps it should learn English.[22]

In April 2014, the Liverpool Echo reported that computers on an intranet used by the United Kingdom government had been used to post offensive remarks about the Hillsborough disaster on Wikipedia pages relating to the subject. The government announced that it would launch an inquiry into the reports.[23] Following the allegations, The Daily Telegraph subsequently reported that government computers appeared to have been used to make rogue edits to a number of other articles, often adding insulting remarks to biographical articles, and in one case reporting the false death of an individual.[24]

A person from Łódź was attacking Polish Wikipedia throughout 2006 and early 2007, inserting profanity and pictures of penises and anuses into pages (especially ones related with Catholicism or Polish politicians), without any reaction from his internet provider, Neostrada. The vandal's activity finished when he was deprived of his internet connection, but not before the entire city of Łódź had to be blocked from editing Wikipedia for three days.[26]

Professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller sued a Miami company whose IP-based edits to the Wikipedia site included negative information about him.[27]

In May 2012, media critic Anita Sarkeesian created a Kickstarter project, intending to raise money to make a series of videos exploring sexism in digital gaming culture.[28] The idea evoked a hostile, misogynous response,[29] which included repeated vandalism of Sarkeesian's Wikipedia article with pornographic imagery, defamatory statements, and threats of sexual violence.[30] More than 12 anonymous editors contributed to the ongoing vandalism campaign before editing privileges were revoked for the page.[29]

In November 2012, the Leveson report—published in the UK by Lord Justice Leveson—incorrectly listed a "Brett Straub" as one of the founders of The Independent newspaper. The name originated from one of several erroneous edits by one of Straub's friends as a prank to Wikipedia by falsely including his name in several articles across the site. The name's inclusion in the report suggested that that part of the report relating to that newspaper had been cut and pasted from Wikipedia without sources first being checked.[31][32] The Straub issue was also humorously referenced in broadcasts of BBC entertainment current affairs TV programme Have I Got News for You (and extended edition Have I Got a Bit More News for You),[33][34] with The Economist also making passing comment on the issue: "The Leveson report...Parts of it are a scissors-and-paste job culled from Wikipedia".[35]

In July 2015, presidential candidate Donald Trump's entire Wikipedia page was deleted and replaced with the solitary sentence "Let's be fair, nobody cares about him."[36][37][38]